Blacker Than a Thousand Midnights Page 2

  At home, his father would be playing Charles Brown in the back room, drinking beer with the men from the neighborhood, slamming down dominoes. “Bad, bad whiskey made me lose my happy home,” Charles would sing.

  Brenda needed him for a happy home. The last time he’d called, she’d said, “You been on high alert for two months, Darnell. I haven’t seen you once.” She stopped, then said, “I’m starting to show. I went to the doctor, and he said five months along.” Her voice was a cloudy waver on the phone.

  The pine needles were leather between his finger and thumb. I ain’t even been home for a couple of years, counting Conservation Corps. Not for more than a month. He heard Scott laughing behind him. I go from this room to Pops’ house. Sleep on the couch. Never even got my own crib yet. Now I gotta get a baby crib. He remembered the raspy breaths of his baby sisters floating from their cribs, his mother hovering, his grandmother saying, “They ain’t gon die, these two. That the one, that boy there—he were trouble, but he big enough now.” And he had slept on the couch ever since. Brenda’s belly—his mother big, lying still to keep the babies. Just me, Brenda, and a baby. He leaned against the old shingles, remembering his father’s favorite Charles Brown song, the deep-blurred voice singing, “You don’t need no narcotics, no antibiotics—you got a virus called the blues.”

  On the way to the tumbleweeds a few days later, he leaned back against the seat and dreamed of napalming feed trails in the spring. The Helitorch set off charges, then dropped Alumagel in liquid fire loops that fell on dense patches of hundred-year-old chaparral, making scar trails in the thick-tangled mats of vegetation, singeing precise lines for the deer and other animals that couldn’t force their way through the brush. It wouldn’t be till after they got called back from the seasonal layoff. They’d only done it twice last year, right when he was first hired, and he smelled it now, the smoke turning to steam with the scent of recent rain and moist leaves rising over the slopes.

  “When do we torch trails?” he asked Fricke.

  “Dude, no way,” Corcoran said before Fricke could answer. “Rio Seco County’s only gotten three inches of rain for the whole damn year. Fricke said you gotta have five inches to torch.” He sound so proud of himself, Darnell thought. Yeah, always talkin about his dad is a fire captain in Santa Ana, his grandpa was fire chief in New York.

  He looked at Fricke, who said, “We’re in a big-time drought.”

  “Shit, we been here since what—April?” Scott said. “Season don’t usually even start till May.”

  Darnell kept looking at Fricke. “You’re the engineer, so you decide when we torch, right?”

  “Not enough rain’s gonna fall while you seasonals are laid off,” Fricke said.

  “That’s the wet months, though, when we’re off,” Darnell said.

  “Not this year, home boy.” Fricke smiled.

  Darnell said, “Your home ain’t my home.” He looked outside. “But we torch first thing when we get called back for the new season, if it rains enough, right?”

  Fricke laughed. “You better wait and see who gets called back. I heard the funding might get cut; we might have fewer seasonals up here.”

  “No way,” Scott said.

  “Yeah, a second ago you were talkin drought and now you say fewer guys—what kinda shit is that? Drought means bigger fires, more guys on the crew,” Darnell said.

  “I feel a greenhouse effect working,” Fricke said. “No bullshit.” He raised those bushy eyebrows, and Darnell knew he would play dumb cowboy and change the subject. “Gets hotter and hotter every year, right?” Fricke turned to Perez and said, “Glad about your ankle? All you have to do today is watch.”

  “Tumbleweeds,” Scott said, pinching the skin between his brows. He drank up large last night, Darnell thought, and now he in a world a hurt.

  “Dude, season’s gotta be over, it’s December,” Perez said.

  “I’m gonna go out every night when we’re off,” Scott said, smiling big now. “Find me some beach babes, cause first week I’m crashin with Corcoran in Newport Beach.”

  “Not me, dude,” Perez said. “I’m findin sleep, forty-eight straight hours. No chick snoring, nobody snoring. No goddamn night fire.” He pushed Darnell’s shoulder. “Hey, you don’t look thrilled about going home. Or you still hate doing tumbleweeds?”

  Darnell didn’t answer; he looked at the banks along the steep roadway. Yeah, I’ma tell everybody I want to stay, he thought. I love it up here. Right. Tell em I love not gettin any sleep, hearin Megadeth and cowboy music. Tell the crew a permanent season’s cool with me cause next week I won’t have no job and my lady’s pregnant. I can see inside their brains: Of course she’s pregnant—that’s a natural condition for black chicks, right? When that volunteer crew buddy of Corcoran’s came up here and his wife was out there pregnant, they all joked about Irish Catholic. Brenda’s Catholic. But that ain’t the same.

  Perez pushed him. “You okay, dude? You want the Helitorch so you can fry somebody back in Rio Seco?” Everybody laughed.

  Darnell breathed hard. “I need to fire up that nasty shirt Fricke’s been wearin two days straight.”

  “Ah, but nobody smells it except me, until I go down to the flatlands to relax,” Fricke said. “Then I catch women with that firefighter-smoke aroma, because I’m not a kept man. Kept on a leash like you. Awhoooh.” His lips were a coyote-howling circle under the Marlboro Man mustache.

  They loved to jam him up about Brenda’s questioning voice, more and more frequent on the phone. Corcoran was the only other one with a girlfriend, and she was a forest ranger up in Eureka, so he got letters. “I’ma see her soon enough, okay?” Darnell said. “I’m a good dog. Bow wow wow.” He looked outside again, so they’d stop talking about her.

  But Scott said, “That’s what you get for single-chick action.”

  Corcoran said, “Diseases are what you get for your action.”

  Fricke said, “Darnell undoubtedly has higher standards than yours, Scott.”

  Perez laughed. “Scott’ll screw anyone that’ll screw him.”

  Darnell had to laugh, and Fricke shook his head. But Scott said, “So I ain’t into Fricke’s metaphysical-soulmate shit, or whatever he calls it.”

  “That was a joke, Scott,” Fricke said, and they busted up again. They were off the mountain now, on the freeway, and Darnell let out a long breath.

  Fricke always tryin to mess with Scott, talkin about “Was that a joke, or just a cliché?” Scott tried to set me up with that white girl from a bar, talkin about she wanted to try a black guy. “A black guy”—the way he says it busts me up. “Home boy.” Home. I’ma be in easy-touchin range every minute I’m home. She’s been waitin for months.

  Early in the season, when he’d come down for the weekend, Brenda would spend all Sunday at the house, and by afternoon, when all the guys hung out in his father’s yard talking smack and fixing cars, Brenda kept her hand on his shirt, his belt, her fingers delicate and persistent as the raccoons’ when they came to the station looking for food.

  She was going to show big soon—her stomach swelling. The mass of fear grew hard in his stomach again. Different from fire-scared; that was like the liquid smoke his father added to barbecue sauce, warmth that made his muscles slide against bone, his joints swing with the shovel. Fumes that turned to the hot feel of Yukon Jack, the stuff he’d swigged off Scott and Perez a few times.

  But this panic, that yesterday’s fire was the last, that he’d be home in Rio Seco for good… Stepping off the truck, he raised his arms to smell the ash in his sleeves, to muffle his breathing while everyone else groaned at the tumbleweeds, huge and humped as Volkswagens covering the fields.

  Orange vests were scattered against the dead brown bushes, and Corcoran said, “Road-camp guys? I thought they only did fire roads.”

  “Don’t matter to me,” Scott said, smiling. “I don’t care who does these damn weeds, long as I don’t.”

  “You do,” Fricke said. “Th
ey fork em, you guys supervise the burn.”

  Darnell knelt quickly to retie his boots. His neck felt thick with warmth, and he didn’t want to look at the prisoners yet. Every time they ran into a crew from the minimum-security facility in Banning, Darnell saw somebody from the Westside doing time for dinky shit. These guys never gotta look for faces, he thought, pulling the laces harder. Their friends are in college. Or wherever. College—Fricke’s up here talkin about fewer seasonals next year, and I’d have to put in three years seasonal and take Emergency Medical Tech before they even look at me for permanent crew. Shit. Department of Forestry wants all college and academy boys.

  He stood up, watching the road-camp faces carefully. Can’t stare too hard, even at a brotha, cause he might get pissed. This is the only time I see a dark face up here. Nothing but brothas, vatos, and even the white dudes look darker when they’re on the road camp.

  He glanced at the faces over the swinging arms that worked the tumbleweeds. Charlton Williams—Darnell had heard he’d been picked up on a warrant for outstanding tickets. Then Darnell saw Victor Smalls look up at him. Victor raised his chin a half inch, and Darnell lifted his face back.

  What was Victor out here for? Darnell looked for Fricke. Don’t make Fricke call you, he thought, joining Scott and the others checking the ditch by the highway for flammable debris. Victor—he’d ask Darnell about Melvin, Darnell’s older brother, who had left Rio Seco the minute he turned eighteen. Darnell saw their faces the way he had as a child, when Melvin and Victor were five years older than him, always saying, “Get away from here, boy.” He remembered the feathery hairs over their mouths when they were sixteen and he was still only ten.

  The road-camp guys piled tumbleweeds into the cleared ditch, the stiff thorns crackling hollow. Darnell pushed the breaking stems down farther with his shovel, waiting until Victor and Charlton worked their way toward the field’s edge, and he said, “What up?”

  “Ain’t nothin but a deuce,” Charlton said. He’d gotten two months.

  “Trey, baby,” Victor said.

  “Three? On what, man?” Darnell said.

  “I didn’t feel like givin the government no money, man. I wasn’t drinkin my intoxicants in a licensed, public venue,” Victor said, leaning on his fork.

  “He been hangin out with Brother Lobo again, talkin like that,” Charlton said, smiling. “Learnin that political shit.”

  Victor’s forehead was glossy with sweat, and he ran his palm over his braids, looking off at the cars speeding past on the freeway. Darnell saw the moisture sparkle on top of the thick rows. Victor had worn braids long before anyone else; he’d quit high school football, refusing to shave his head like the other players, and he’d kept his cornrows perfect with red, black, and green rubber bands circling the tails at the nape of his neck. The coaches hated him. He and Melvin had gotten suspended for outlining the flies of their jeans with rhinestones, for spelling out “Superfly” and “The Stick” in gold studs down the thighs.

  “I ain’t seen Melvin in hella long time,” Victor said, spitting at the dirt.

  Darnell said, “He’s still in LA.”

  “Melvin probably still ain’t doin nothin in LA either,” Victor said. “He just think LA nothin is better than Rio Seco nothin.”

  Charlton said, “You just missed Ray-Ray, man. He got out last week. They busted him for child support.”

  Darnell felt cold travel like fingernails along his scalp. “Say, man, you better get to work,” Victor said. “You the shit, man, you gettin paid to be out here. Don’t be fraternizin with the niggas, now.”

  Darnell said, “Man, don’t even trip like that. I don’t play that.” He looked down the ditch at Fricke, who watched him. “Later—I’ll check, homes.”

  Homey, doncha know me? That’s what brothers said on the Westside if you didn’t see someone’s wave or you didn’t acknowledge him. “Home boy.” Scott and Fricke and the others loved to say that word, chop it in two. Darnell felt the sun on his shoulders, heard the wind rattle the tumbleweeds. When they were done, the dust would swirl off this field for days if the Santa Anas kept up. He knew Brenda was at work seeing the palm trees bend with the wind; now that she understood about the wind and dryness, after he’d been working fires for two years, she hated anything like a breeze. He heard the voices and laughing come closer, and saw Victor and Charlton working their way back with the rest of the orange cloth that advanced like slow flames.

  They were silent, waiting until the others had passed them, and then Victor said, “Darnell, man, you out here choppin like you think this is cotton and shit.”

  “My man love his job,” Charlton said.

  Victor said, “How’s Itty Bitta Yella?” Darnell had to laugh. He hadn’t heard anybody call Brenda that name in a long time. Victor’s sister Sonia had always terrorized Brenda in school, calling her that name.

  “She ain’t gon be itty-bitta no more,” Darnell said without thinking, and before he could close his mouth, Charlton and Victor saw his face and laughed.

  “Itty gon have a baby?” Victor said. “You’s a fool, man, cause her daddy gon kill you. She takin college classes, got a good job, and you a never-home Westside brotha. Oh, man, you ain’t got no sense.”

  Darnell gripped the shovel and slashed at the roots of the weeds near his feet. Why I have to open my big mouth? Damn. He said, “Brenda don’t like nobody callin her Itty, man. That was back in school, okay?”

  Victor said, “You what, twenty?”

  He gon give me the older-brother rap now, Darnell thought. “Twenty-one in April, man.”

  But Victor didn’t laugh and hit him on the back and say what Darnell was waiting for, the stuff about it had to happen and now you ain’t gon get no peace nor piece. Victor said, “One more nigga down, couple million to go,” and he worked his way back toward the road.

  “It ain’t that bad, man,” Charlton said. “Me and Lesa got two, and I give her some money, I take em out to the park on the weekend. You ain’t seen my boys, huh? Lesa stay out in Pomona with her aunt.”

  Darnell said, “Boys, huh?” But he watched Victor, who didn’t even pretend to move the bushes into a pile. Victor walked straight back to the ditch.

  Charlton went one way and Darnell the other when they neared the asphalt. Corcoran leaned against the engine, watching the road-camp guys near the prison bus. The smoke rose and wafted over the highway, and cars ripped the black veils into the air. “I heard these guys are doing a lotta stuff now,” Corcoran said. “Like tumbleweeds, fire roads, and somebody said they got a prison crew doing the Highway 74 fires. They’re gonna start using prisoners up north, too, for big burns.”

  Darnell stared at Fricke. “So that’s how we save money on seasonal, huh? Get all the brothers and vatos for free.”

  Fricke spat in the dirt, and Darnell folded his arms, waiting. “People would ask what the problem is,” Fricke said. “The jails are overcrowded, so get guys outside all day and they don’t want to fight as much, huh?”

  “I know all that fresh-air shit by heart,” Darnell said. “I spent last year in the Conservation Corps, remember? ‘Low-income youths between eighteen and twenty-three. We promote spirit and instill discipline.’ You’re talkin free labor. And I got a promoted spirit. Uh-uh, save that shit for somebody else, man.” Darnell walked part way up the road, listening to the rattling tumbleweeds and the muffled tremble of flames. Perez laughed.

  High alert: for days, the wind would calm to a tremble in the warmth and then pick up again, racing under the station eaves. But they’d been idle since the tumbleweeds, and the men shifted in the garage, in the kitchen, jostling each other. “No campers left up here, man,” Perez would say. “Just us. Come on, Raycraft.”

  Darnell watched Fricke edge away from him in the rooms, and he knew why. Fricke don’t want me to ask the question, he thought. Raycraft gon call me back or not? I did a good job. He rubbed his neck, watching the browned pine needles, and went outside to get away from t
he silent phone.

  He lay flat on the piece of cardboard, his face close to the belly of the Spider, and when Scott squatted next to him, he said, “The clutch is messin up again.”

  “Yeah, again,” Scott laughed. “FIAT means Fix It Again, Tony.”

  “Well, the dude fixes mine ain’t named Tony,” Darnell said. “But he charges serious ducats cause he hates this car.”

  “I bet it’s the clutch disc,” Scott said. “Italian cars mess up on the disc.”

  Darnell slid out from between the tires and sat on his heels. Scott bent his buzz-cut hair to the primer on the door base. He always talked about spending days in the driveway fixing Volkswagen Bugs, and Darnell would nod. If he wasn’t with Brenda, he and his father talked around and under trucks.

  “I adjusted that bad boy, but I’ma have to test it before I go down the mountain,” Darnell said. He looked at the chalky primer. “I got a friend with this color all picked out for my paint job. Rainstorm—like a gray and black and blue all mixed together. Nacho, man, he’s serious about colors. He can do pinstripes and everything, too.”

  “How much?”

  “Too much.” Darnell wiped his hands. “Cause he only does this on the side. I been saving for a while.”

  “Yeah, it’s bullshit that we gotta pay for board up here. CDF don’t pay enough anyway, and then we gotta give some back,” Scott said. “Forest Service don’t charge for board.”

  “Because you’re only working days, technically, when you work for the Forest Service,” Fricke said from the doorway. “If you don’t like paying, Scott, you can always sleep under the trees. Like a natural man.” He smiled.

  “Just let me go home soon, man, call off this wind,” Scott said.

  Darnell started up the Fiat, and Fricke came over to the window. “Taking a drive?” Fricke said.

  “Yeah, I gotta check this clutch again.” Darnell looked at the darkening pine trunks.